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famous comedian Jin Carrey in the movie "Trumen's World" played a character "Trumen" who has lived in a reality show for his whole life. His dream is to go to Fiji one day.
Truman’s wish to “go to sea”. Source/Screenshot of the movie "Trumen's World"
However, if he really gets there, there will probably be a little psychological gap: this South Pacific island country is quite similar to India, which is thousands of miles away. The reason is very simple. Among the total population of Fiji, Indian (including Pakistan) people account for half of the land, and almost all local businesses are controlled by Indian .
Nanyang Island in Fiji. Photography/Pig Pig Love Photography Source/TuChong Creative
"Little India" on the Pacific Ocean
Someone asked, Indians have no tradition of sailing in history. How did they go from Indian Ocean to the Pacific? After all, this is still the responsibility of the British colonists (Fiji became a British colony in 1874) . Fiji is located between 15-22° south latitude, and has a typical tropical climate, which is very suitable for plantation economic development. Having said that, the abnormal development of plantation economy is not a good thing. It is clear to see what the British did in West Indies .
After taking a large area of fertile land from the natives of Fijian, planters also need labor. But the number of indigenous people is limited, and their attitude towards life is relatively casual and they are reluctant to engage in time-bound work, so relying solely on them is far from meeting the plantation's labor needs. If it were hundreds of years earlier, it would not be a problem. Searching for the keyword "black slave" is clear at a glance. After all, the times are progressing. Britain in the 19th century had nominally abolished slavery, so he could only think of other ideas.
The British turned their attention to British India. In January 1879, 31 Indian "indentured workers" came to Fiji and began to engage in high-intensity and long-term physical labor on the plantation, opening the door for Indians to immigrate to Fiji. Because they are hard-working, very adapted to the local tropical climate, and have long-term experience in agricultural production, they are particularly popular with planters. Batches of Indians have arrived in this Pacific island country from , South Asian subcontinent, through indentured labor.
The so-called "contract labor" is better than the treatment of slaves. An immigrant who has completed the five-year service stipulated in the contract and after the expiration of any additional extension imposed on him by the court, he can obtain an industrial household registration certificate and become a "free person". If he wants, he can return to India by himself. But he can also sign a five-year contract as a free man, or be employed as a free labourer for the same period of time, in any employer, in a craft or industry, or settle on a small piece of land. The problem is that the reward given by the planters is too low, and the contracted workers who become "free people" cannot afford the travel expenses to India at all, so most of the workers and their relatives settled in Fiji. As a result, although Indians immigrated to Fiji, they were forced or even deceived, by 1956, Indians had already accounted for 49% of the total population, while Fiji's native population only accounted for 43% of the total population. Fiji has thus become the only area in the South Pacific region where the migrant population exceeds the local population.
Fijian native women. Source/Wikipedia
In May 1970, Fiji won independence, and the parliamentary seats were allocated like this: of the 25 national seats, Fijian and Indians each accounted for 10 seats, while the others accounted for 5 seats. The large number of Indians is also reflected in the evolution of Fiji's political situation.In 1987, the Indians won again in the general election, and Timoci Bavadra (Timoci Bavadra) became the first Indian Prime Minister on Fijian history . In 1999, Mahendra Chaudhry (Mahendra Chaudhry) won the general election and was elected Prime Minister of Fiji. Although both prime ministers stepped down due to a coup launched by the Fijian-led army, the latter cannot but recognize the Indians' place in Fiji's political territory. An interesting example of this is that there are only two countries in the world where ( Hindi ) is the official language. One of them is of course India, and the other is Fiji (although there is a slight difference between Fiji Hindustan and Hindi) .
Indeed labor is everywhere
In fact, with the abolition of the slave trade and slavery in 1833, the plantation economy in the overseas colonies of Britain generally experienced labor shortages. In order to fill the gap, the British colonial governments of the Caribbean , the Indian Ocean and Africa all turned to India to seek cheap and sufficient sources of labor. "The British Empire recruited nearly 15 million Indians from the inland and eastern coastal areas of northern India to transport them to British overseas colonies as far as Natal , Mauritius , Guyana, Trinidad , Suriname and Fiji to replace the former slaves and act as sugarcane plantations laborers."
1870 Trinidad Immigration License. Source/United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization "Memory of the World"
The "Natal" mentioned above is a province in British South Africa. The local coastal area has a humid climate and is suitable for planting crops such as sugarcane. As a result, the British made the same decision and began to introduce contracted workers from India. From the beginning to the end of the Indian Indentured Labor system in Natal (1860-1910) , about 150,000 Indians settled in South Africa.
South Africa has been famous for its infamous apartheid policy , and Indians naturally suffered as well. In 1893, when "Mahatma" Gandhi came to South Africa as a lawyer, he encountered problems he had never encountered before in India or Britain. He wore a stylish formal jacket, ironed pants, shiny shoes, headscarf, and first-class accommodation provided by clients. As a result, the whites opposed him entering the first class, and railway officials insisted that he be in the third class. Due to Gandhi's resistance and rejection, they simply threw him and his luggage off the train.
Despite this, after the struggle, the Indians in South Africa gradually won a higher status than blacks. In 1977, Indians and other people of color were qualified to serve in the government (previously monopolized by whites in South Africa) , and in 1982, people of color received a separate house within the framework of white racist regimes. By 1994, after South Africa's abolition of apartheid, five of the sixteen members of the Mandela cabinet had Indian ministers, although Indians accounted for only 3% of South Africa's total population at that time.
1835, the UK abolished slavery and British Indians entered Mauritius as labor force. Source/Show "Ile Maurice au delà de la carte (The other side of Mauritius)" screenshot
In fact, the earliest sugar production in southern Africa originated from the plantation in Mauritius, and Natal also learned from the Mauritius ruling authorities in the introduction of Indian contract labor. Unlike some other places, before the new route was opened, Mauritius was just a deserted island hanging in the ocean, and the residents here were all "latecomers". Between 1834 and 1907, more than 450,000 Indian indentured workers entered Mauritius, mainly employed in sugarcane plantations and sugar industry. Given the hardships of the sea journey, there must be much more people who actually leave India. For example, once, several boats came from , Pundicherry, India, and were moored and quarantined at the port of Mauritius."One hundred and thirty people died in a boat of 224; none of them carried doctors with them..." Despite this, in 1871, the proportion of the Indian population in the total population of Mauritius reached 67%. Mauritius has thus become a multi-ethnic country with Indian immigrants as the main body. But the situation is different from Fiji. Since Mauritius was originally a French colony, the French-based Creole (mixed language) has become the common language in the local area. Even Indians with an absolute population dominance finally adopted this language.
But in other aspects, the "Indian style" in Mauritius is still very significant. For example, the main festival of Hindu , “ Shiva Festival ” is a national holiday. His founding father, Seewoosagur Ramgoolam (1900-1985), is also an Indian descent. His father arrived in Mauritius on the Hindustan ship in 1896. The funeral of Ramguran was also held in Hindu rituals. In 1992, Mauritius changed to Republic (previously Queen of England was the head of state) . The ancestors of the first local president, Cassam Uteem , also immigrated from Uttar Pradesh, India.
Near water tower Southeast Asia
As for Southeast Asia, which is geographically close, it is also another major gathering place for India to immigrate outwards. Today, Indians can be found in every country in Southeast Asia. It should be noted that although ancient Southeast Asia was closely related to India in terms of culture and religion, some Western scholars called early countries in other Southeast Asia except for the northern part of Vietnam today "Indianized countries", the number of Indian immigrants at that time was long unknown, and they had already integrated with local residents over the long period of history. Therefore, the Indians and their descendants in Southeast Asia we meet today have only been large-scale immigration from the Indian subcontinent to the local area in modern times.
Among them, Myanmar borders India and naturally bear the brunt. After three British-British Wars, in 1886, Britain officially annexed Myanmar and made it a province of British India. Such an administrative connection will naturally open the door to facilitate the migration of Indians to Myanmar. These Indian immigrants almost copied the occupational map in the South Asian subcontinent: the high caste Brahmin acted as civilians in colonial government agencies; the Rajiput and Sikh (belonging to the Kshatrian caste) joined the army or acted as police and guards; the Tamil Cheti and Telugu Cheti from southern India, as well as the Marri and Barcelona from northern India engaged in banking and commercial activities; the lower castes of Tamil and Telugu were engaged in agricultural labor.
The result is that Myanmar once became one of the countries with the most immigrants in India, with more than one million people at its peak in 1931. At that time, the largest city in Myanmar alone, there were as many as 210,000 Indians, accounting for 53% of the city's population. Some people assert that "before the war, a person could not live if he could not speak Hindustanic." Although this statement is a bit exaggerated, the existence of many Indians made Yangon see it as "a city for Indians" before World War II , and the Indian language they commonly use was still the common language among Yangon merchants until the 1950s. Others who specialize in usury took the opportunity to control many of the best rice fields in southern Myanmar (25% in 1936) , while Burmese people became tenant farmers. However, with the independence of Myanmar, the Indians lost their past glory. Nowadays, the status of Indians is insignificant in Myanmar's political and economic territory, leaving only one " Rohingya " problem that has caused headaches for the governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh...
"Rohingya" in Myanmar. Source/Observer.com Video Screenshot
. In Malay (the area of Singapore is mainly composed of Malay Peninsula as the main body) , the main source of Indians is still labor.In addition to the general "indenture labor", there is also a "Kangani system (Kangani) . This system lasted until 1938. Unlike "indenture labor", it uses the middleman (foreman) , introduces the debt guarantee model, recruits workers for plantations, often without a contract or a fixed service period, and hires the entire family to transport them to plantations for services. Indian laborers opened in 1860. In 1921, the number of Indians who immigrated to Singapore was 472,000. It is worth mentioning that among these Indian immigrants who immigrated to Malaya, South Indian origin accounted for the vast majority. Among these Indian immigrants who immigrated to Malaya, the majority were from South India. Among them, Tamil (Tamil) were the leader. 19 In 21 years, South Indians accounted for 94% of the total population of Malaya, and 87% of them were Tamil . Today, among the four official languages in Singapore, there is only Tamil and no Hindi, which is why.
Migrant workers in Singapore. Source/Documentary "History of Singapore" screenshot html l4
Today, Indians have become the third largest ethnic group in Malaysia and Singapore. Although their population is less than 10% of the total population of the two places, they are quite active on the political stage. There is an Indian Congress in Malaysia, which appears as an Indian descent in previous elections. What’s more interesting is that former Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir (1925- ) Although has always been regarded as the interests of Malays , in terms of bloodline, he is actually a descendant of Indians. His patriarchal lineage has the bloodline of Kerala in southern India, and only came to Malaya to settle in the 19th century. As for Singapore, where Chinese accounts for the vast majority of the population, there are also Indians in the political arena. Lee Kuan Yew 's close partner, regarded as one of the founding fathers of Singapore, The Rajarna International Research Institute of Nanyang Technological University , named after it, Rajarna (1915-2006) is a Tamil. Of course, strictly speaking, his ancestors came from Sri Lanka rather than the South Asian subcontinent, and they are not considered "Indian" in the strict sense. However, Singapore's third president Tiffanna (Chengara) Veetil Devan Nair, 1923-2005) The origin of is Kerala, which is undoubtedly the "Indian".
It is said that overseas Indians are now the third largest immigrant group in the world, second only to British descendants and overseas Chinese. Statistical report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of India shows that as of October 2017, India's overseas population exceeded 31.23 million, distributed in more than 200 countries and regions around the world. What is interesting is that the sea The areas where foreign Indians were able to go out to the prime ministers were all British colonies without exception. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, it was the London authorities who opened the gates for Indians to move to the entire "Empire of Sun Never Setting". In this sense, it is a natural result for overseas Indians to join the cabinet and serve as ministers in London.
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Author | Guo Yemin
